1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic input apparatus for sending input information to a computer system, and particularly to an electronic input apparatus and the like for sending input information written with a pen on a piece of paper placed on a digitizer to a computer system.
2. Background Art
In computer systems such as various personal computers and PDA (Personal Digital Assistants), an input apparatus is connected for sending operation instructions and various information to such computer systems. The typical one is a keyboard or mouse, and a joystick often used with a game machine, and a tablet used for precision input for CAD and for illustration are also widely used. This tablet is provided with a plate-like pressure-sensing surface, and a pen for inputting. Touching the pressure-sensing surface with the pen enables the corresponding absolute position on a screen to be pointed to, and allows fine inputting of coordinates or graphics as compared with the mouse and the like.
Thus, for instance, in the conventional input apparatus such as tablet, input information drawn by the user with a pen can be transmitted to a computer system. However, the drawn input information is reproduced on the screen of the computer system, but the input information does not remain on a medium such as paper. For this, pen input information to a document requiring handwriting cannot be directly input to the computer system by using a tablet, and it is required that it should be once input to a piece of paper and thereafter reentered by a scanner or the like. Since the same track can not be electronically recorded simultaneously with the writing performed to the medium such as paper with a pen, no large savings in time and effort can be made when the user inputs required handwritten information.
Further, the conventional input apparatus does not electronically record the same track simultaneously with the writing with a pen, if the writing is to be performed using penpoints having different attributes such as color and thickness rather only one type of penpoint.
In the conventional input apparatus, only coordinate information can be transmitted to the computer system, and no other attribute information can be transmitted. For instance, in the inputting using the conventional “painting tool,” it has been only possible that a color, type, thickness and the like are specified on application software before or after the inputting, to directly enter the drawing by the input apparatus into the computer system.
The present invention was accomplished to solve the above technical problems, and it aims to enable inputting to be performed with different pen types or colors in an input apparatus for electronically recording tracks written with a pen.
Further, another object is to transmit attribute information such as pen type or color along with coordinate information when input information is transmitted from the input apparatus to a computer system.